The Bonds That Try
by Hwikek
Summary: Today is the day, the day of having to put up with an eccentric chemistry teacher who has trouble curbing his enthusiasim for teaching, even when no one else can understand a word he's saying, even if all of it is correct.
1. I'm Lost

"Yomi," said Tomo, "What's the answer?"

"N-O."

"Yomi," said Kagura, "What's the answer?"

"N-O."

"Yomi…."

"I told you," Yomi said to Osaka, "N-O."

"What are you talkin' 'bout?" asked Osaka. "What does that have to do with Chem class?"

"It's asking for the formula for nitrogen monoxide," said Yomi.

"Yeah," cried Kagura, "What's the answer?"

"N-O."

"Okay," said Tomo, "What do we have to do to get you to help us? Do we need to give you money?"

"Let's just ask Chiyo." The three of them walked away as Yomi shook her head. "Oh wait, now I get it," said Kagura.

"Get what?" asked Tomo.

"Oh I get it too," said Osaka, "How could we have missed it?"

"Missed what?" asked Tomo.

"The answer."

"What is it?"

"NO."

"Come on," said Tomo, "Tell me!"

"But that's the answer," said Kagura.

"If you won't help me with this I'll just ask the teacher!" The "Wildcat" stomped off towards the instructor. She then let out a scream of frustration when he also answered NO. "Why won't anyone tell me the answer?"

"Well let's think about this. Nitrogen monoxide is made up of how many atoms?"

"I don't know."

"Oh come on…think back to the naming rules for covalent compounds."

"Uh." Tomo struggled to remember the events of the previous day. She had felt that her teacher was simply moving along too quickly. He had kept saying terms and words that she didn't understand. And she had the feeling that she never would understand them.

"Remember, the prefix always designates the number of atoms of each element the compound is composed of. Since nitrogen has no prefix, how many nitrogen atoms are in nitrogen monoxide?"

"Uh…Mr. Hwikek?"

"Yes?"

"I don't know."

"Well, when there isn't a prefix that means there is only one atom of that particular element." He drew a capital N on the board. "So what would our next step…. What did you call me?""Mr. Hwikek."

"Dear God," said Hwikek, "Can't I escape that nickname anywhere?"

"But you have to tell me!"

"Okay, okay. What does monoxide mean?"

"I don't know!" Tomo squeezed her hands against her head. "This is like rocket science!"

"Oh come on," said Hwikek, "I've been teaching you students how to do this for the past three months! What is mono?"

"A disease that…."

"No," Hwikek "face palmed", "Not that mono."

"One?"

"Yes!" he smiled, "And what does the prefix do?"

"What prefix?" asked Tomo.

Hwikek nearly died. _Three months…three months that I'll never get back._ He wrapped his hands around his head and started to cry. Tomo was shocked. _No_, thought Hwikek, _must…try…to educate!_

"The prefix mono."

"That's a disease," said Tomo.

"Um…you're kidding right?"

"No," said Tomo, "It's a disease."

"Mono means one right?" asked Hwikek, who was still hoping to teach his student.

"Yes," said Tomo.

"So if mono means one, then monoxide can be thought of as one oxide and if we think of it that way, how many oxygen atoms do we have?"

"Zero 'cause you said oxide is an ion and that ions aren't atoms."

"Ions aren't atoms, but we'd have one oxygen atom."

"Are you sure Mr. Hwikek?"

"Please call me by my real name," said Hwikek.

"Isn't that your name?" asked Tomo.

_Why does this keep happening?_ Hwikek felt like sobbing again. _This is almost as bad as Community College!_

As the loser teacher was being all emo Tomo walked back to her desk. The rest of her questions seemed to be just as incomprehensible as _nitrogen monoxide_. She turned to her friend Yomi.

"What does this mean?" Tomo held up piece of paper with _NH__3_ written on it.

"Nitrogen trihydri—"

"Uh Miss Yomi, that's not what it's called," said Chiyo.

"What are you— Oh! I can't believe that I even said that. Yeah that's ammonia."

"Ammonia?" asked Tomo, "That's not what teacher said."

"That is what Mr. Hwikek said," Chiyo corrected as Hwikek started to do more girly crying, "Were you paying attention during his lecture?""I was texting," said Tomo, "So I only caught snippets of it.""Okay," said Kagura, "So this would be hydrogen dioxide…right?"

"No," said Osaka, "That's monohydrogen monoxide."

"You mean dihydrogen monoxide," said Yomi.

"But that's called water," said Chiyo.

"Oh! Why do I keep forgetting that?" asked Yomi.

"So this is copper chloride?" asked Tomo.

"No," said Yomi, "When it's a type two binary compound you have a transition metal and you have to designate the charge of the cation with Roman numerals."

"The cation?" asked Tomo, hopelessly lost.

"Yeah, that's why copper is a metal," said Yomi.

"But what's a cation?" asked Tomo.

"I know!"

The five of them watched as Hwikek raced over towards their group. "A cation is a positively charged ion and since the formula says CuCl that means that it has to be a copper (I) cation to balance out the charge of the chloride anion."

"Wait," Tomo complained, "You've totally lost me."

"Chlorine forms an anion with a negative one charge turning it into chloride," said Hwikek, "This is because chlorine wants to gain a stable electron configuration and it must therefore gain one electron to have an electron configuration that is the same as that of the next noble gas, which in this case is neon."

"Con…figur…ation?"

"The configuration of the electrons in the chlorine atom," said Hwikek.

"What are electrons?" asked Tomo.

"Negatively charged particles that exist in orbits around the nucleus of the atom. These particles are so small that they have almost no mass."

"I…I don't understand," said Tomo.

"Well chlorine is a halogen, and what group are halogens?" asked Hwikek.

"S…even?"

"Yes!" he shouted, "NOW WE'RE GETTING SOMEWHERE!"

"Will you keep it down?" asked the math teacher, poking her head through the door, "_Some_ of us are trying to teach."

"Oh shut your pie hole," said Hwikek, "I could teach your students more efficiently than you can."

"Really?"

"Indeed I can," said Hwikek, "And I'll be happy to prove it."

"Then," the woman had a dangerous smile, "Teach Tomo to derive the quadratic formula!"

"Ha!" said Hwikek, "I can do that before lunch!"

"No!" said Tomo, "I don't want to be a nerd like you two!"

Hwikek and the math teacher's mouths gaped as they slowly crouched into balls. Yomi rolled her eyes as her emotionally weak instructors rocked back and forth on their knees. _Okay_, thought Mizuhara, _what am I supposed to do on this math problem?_

"That's easy!" said the two teachers.

"Hwha? You guys can read minds?"

"All you have to do to derive the remainder theorem is write down…." The two teachers continued to give a virtually unintelligible answer. Yomi just stared at the two of them as they used the chalkboard to write out the steps. Chiyo and Osaka nodded their heads as the two continued to talk.

"So," Chiyo raised her hand, "Then to get f(a) to equal r, you just need to multiply the terms together?"

"Uh huh." The two young adults nodded their heads in unison. "This would work because when we plug a into f(x) = q(x)(x-a) + r we would get f(a) = q(a)(a-a) = r where one of the terms would then become zero. And since anything multiplied by zero equals zero, we would be left with f(a) = r."

"What does this have to do with copper (I) chloride?" asked Kagura.

"Nothing," they both answered.

"Aw shoot," said the math teacher, "I left my class in the middle of teaching them about Pascal's Triangle!"

"Hey before you go," said Hwikek, "What are you doing this weekend?"

"We'll talk later." She then left the classroom, leaving a certain chemistry teacher distraught. Gathering what remained of his composure and self confidence, he turned to face his students. And they were all busy texting, except for Chiyo.

"I had a question," said the girl.

"What is it?" asked Hwikek.

"Why do you and the math teacher fight all the time if you like each other?"

"We don't fight that much," said Hwikek, "I mean it's only about once a month…if you know…."

"Know what?"

"I'm the chemistry teacher," said Hwikek, "I'm not paid to teach biology."

"Hey Hwi-lame!" yelled Tomo, "How the fuck do I do this math problem?"

"Okay," said Hwikek, "That's detention for you Takino!"

"Wha?"

"You'll have plenty of time to do those math problems when you sit your butt in here for detention!"

"You can't do that!" screamed the "Wildcat", "My mom would kill me!"

"Th-that's a low blow! How did you know that my mother pushed me and pushed me in school?"

"I didn't I just said that…."

"Everything had to be perfect," Hwikek faced the chalkboard, leaning against it with one hand. "Everything…everything…." His head drooped down as he started doing that weird emo thing again.

"Hey Hwikek." He raised his head up. "Didn't you say that you knew biology pretty well?"

"I just want to go home and cry," said Hwikek. "My students don't like me, my social life is a joke, and I don't have a girlfriend! It sucks to be me!"

"Uh, can you help me with problem number sev—"

But when Hwikek heard that one of his students had a question, he was completely revived.


	2. Oblivionit's noogey time

"Uh, I'm here now."

"Oh good." Hwikek turned towards Tomo. "I was starting to think that you'd never show up."

"What am I here for?" she whined.

"What you said in class the other day was extremely inappropriate. There's no reason to swear in school, or insult your teachers."

"But you're so lame!" she whined.

"I'm lame huh?" His face had an evil smile. "Then I'll make you become even lamer."

"What?" Panic gripped the "Wildcat". _Is this really happening?_

"By the time I'm done with you, not only will you understand logarithms, you'll like science fiction TV shows."

"You like those?" asked Tomo.

"No," said Hwikek, "But if I'm going to make you even lamer than I am, I have to start somewhere."

"I thought we were just going to do math problems…."

Her whimpering voice softened the lame-o. "Okay," said Hwikek, "We'll do that instead. But I'm still a little upset with what you said about my colleague and I."

"Fine," she sniffed, "I'm sorry.""What do you need help with anyways?" The girl proceeded to pull out a sheet of paper. "Gah, this is what you need help with?" Shock, surprise, his face looked like his car had been broken into.

"Uh, yeah," said Tomo.

"But…it's two divided by three."

"The teacher wants us to simplify all of the problems on this sheet. I don't understand it."

"Well the thing is that this is already simplified," said Hwikek.

"How?"

"Well it's already been factored out and reduced you see."

"What are factors?" asked Tomo.

"Well factors are…. Factors are, you see they're…um. I…can't explain it," said Hwikek.

"Ha!" The math teacher appeared inside of the classroom. "And you say that I'm a bad math teacher? Please, any competent instructor can tell someone what a factor is. A number is made up of parts, factors are the parts that when multiplied together equal the original number. For instance the factors of six are one multiplied by six, and two multiplied by three. When you have a fraction where everything on the top and everything on the bottom are only separated by multiplication, like terms will cancel out. Two and three aren't like terms, so they won't cancel out."

"I'm more lost than before!" said Tomo.

"Well let's try this problem." What she pointed to was the expression fifteen divided by twenty five. "What multiplies to fifteen?"

"Five and three," said Tomo, "I'm not stupid."

"And what multiplies to twenty five?"

"Five times five, come on this is basic stuff."

"So," she looked at her student, "If we write that out, as five times three on the top, and five squared on the bottom, what can we do?"

"Uh, I'm not really sure," said Tomo.

"How are these terms separated?" she asked.

"Oh I get it," said the girl, "Since their all separated by multiplication, I can cancel out the five on the top, and a five on the bottom. That would leave me with three divided by five…and that's it?" The math teacher nodded. "But that's so simple!"

"Yep," she responded, "Math isn't that hard, you just need someone _competent_ to show you how it's done."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Hwikek.

"It means that you need to buy me lunch, since I'm better at teaching math than you are."

"What makes you think that I'll buy you lunch?"

"You know better than to ignore me," said the woman, "Haven't you done that before?" No emotion could be seen on his face. "How did that work out?"

"I passed that class."

"That was a fluke!"

"Wait a minute, you two went to high school together?"

"No," said the two teachers, "We went to college together."

"And you two were always this lame?" asked Tomo. She then felt a twinge of regret, as the two of them crouched into balls, shaking like leaves. "I mean, you're…alright."

"Really?" Tomo couldn't find it in her heart to say no. Their eyes were just too full of hope. She gave them a nod, and for once, they sobbed with joy.

"Okay," said Hwikek. He began to write on the board. Since the incident yesterday he had begun to dread classes that had Tomo in them. She had a similar feeling about any time she had to be near the unusual Hwikek.

_What kind of teacher likes science and teaching anyways? Certainly not Yukari, and Ms. Kurosawa is definitely not in the pocket protector clu—_

"I don't even have pockets!"

_Crap_, thought Tomo, _he saw what I was writing down_.

"I see you still like to make fun of me," his eye twitched, flickering like the circular blade of a table saw. "You're lucky that I have more self control than Ms. Tanazaki. You'd never do something like this in her class."

"She would," said Yomi, "She's an idiot."

"Damn it Yomi!""That's enough," said Hwikek, "Chemistry has never helped to extend violent conflicts…. Well you know what I mean, stupid World War I, denying me the right of always being correct."

"What about World War II?" asked Chiyo, "Didn't chemistry help to extend the length of conflict then as well?"

Hwikek sighed as the rest of his students began to contradict him as well. _Why does this only happen this period? Actually that's kind of nice…in a way._

"I have a question."

"What is it Kaori?"

"Why is the math teacher, Ms. Kasuga, in here?"

"Well, I needed to borrow something." She then grabbed a stapler off her friend's desk. The door slammed shut behind her.

"What!" The man balled up his hands. "Did she really just take my stapler? I had to buy that stapler myself. I spent so much time making sure that it would be an absolutely _perfect_ stapler." His knuckles popped as his hands squeezed together. "Why did you do that Kagami?"

"Don't be so dramatic," said Ms. Kasuga as she opened the door, "It's just a stapler."

"It was really expensive!"

"I'll give it back."

"Really?"

"Uh, _yeah_, what did you think I meant when I said 'borrowing'?" The woman then left the room. Hwikek sighed with relief. He's pretty dork-tastic isn't he?

"What about my other question?" asked Kaorin.

"Oh yeah, shoot."

"What's ammonium?"

"That's a polyatomic ion," said Hwikek. He then began to write an N on the board. This was followed by an H with a subscript of four, and the entire thing was then enclosed in brackets with a super script of negative one.

"What is that?"

"Ammonium is…." He then turned back towards the chalkboard. Taking a small piece of chalk in hand he turned the minus sign into a plus sign. "I can't believe that I accidentally wrote ammonium with a negative charge, it obviously has a positive charge."

"Why does it have a positive charge?" asked Kaorin.

"Well, where is nitrogen on the periodic table?"

"Um…group five."

"And what does the group number designate for elements that are not transition metals?" asked Hwikek.

"Uh…the charge of their ions?"

"Indeed so what charge does nitride have?" asked Hwikek.

"What's nitride?" asked Tomo.

"The ion formed by nitrogen," said Hwikek.

"Why is it called nitride?" asked Tomo.

"Because it's an anion, and anions follow a special naming scheme. Since nitride has a negative three charge and hydrogen ion has a positive one charge ammonium has a positive one charge."

"Why is it a positive one charge?"

"Well that's because nitride's negative three charge is cancelled out by three of the hydrogens, but then we have another hydrogen with a plus one charge so the entire polyatomic ion has a positive one charge."

"How do polyatomic ions form?"

"Well you see—"

"What's gonna be on the test?" asked Tomo.

"If I told you now, you'd ignore everything else I had to say! So why would I tell everyone what's going to be on the test?" asked Hwikek.

"Why are you so tall?" asked Osaka.

"I'm not tall…well actually I am tall," said Hwikek, "But it's also true that you guys are just short."

"We are not short!" said Tomo and Osaka.

"You're pretty dang short," said Hwikek, "I mean where I come from you'd be shorter than average."

"Where are you from?" asked Tomo.

"California," said Hwikek.

"So am I!" The students were shocked by Ms. Kasuga's sudden appearance. "But that's not how we met." She then put Hwikek into a headlock.

"Um," Hwikek had a bored expression on his face, "What are you doing?"

"Noogeying you to oblivion!"

"Please don't," said Hwikek, "That would be somewhat irritating."

"Don't tell me what to do!" said Kagami.

"I have a class to teach," said Hwikek.

"You two are from California?" asked Tomo.

"Indeed we are," said the two of them. "But we didn't know each other until we went to college."

"I originally had to go to a community college," said Hwikek, "But this was only because of a weird mix up in my applications to real centers of higher education. After that was sorted out I went to— Gah! Stop that!"

"Not until you say uncle!" Kagami continued to rub her fist against his head. This went on for about ten minutes before Kagami finally grew bored and stopped. Hwikek had a wicked smile on his face.

"I knew I would win."

"Damn you," said Kagami, "I can't believe that I let you win!"

"I can't believe it took you so long to give up," said Hwikek, "Now please let go of me."

"There's a toilet nearby," said Kagami with an evil smile, "Maybe you'll give up then?"

"I'm just trying to be mature," said Hwikek, "And if you do that, I will seriously beat the crap out of you.""You wouldn't."

"Yes I would," said Hwikek, "Mature as I am, I do have my limits."

"Fine," and with that she let go.


	3. Kagami equals Yukari?

"Excuse me, Mr. Hwikek?"

The man sighed as Yomi came into his classroom. He'd hoped that people would refrain from calling him Hwikek but the name had a ring to it. One that annoyed the young chemistry teacher greatly.

"Hello Koyomi, did you have a question?"

"Yes, did you get good grades in school?"

"I like to think so," said Hwikek, "at least in high school I was close to being one of the top ten students. Never did happen. Too many Bs freshman year, oh well."

Yomi had a slightly perplexed look.

"Hmm, I guess that the American school system doesn't match up with the Japanese one, you guys only have three years of high school, we have four. I wish I could say that I only had to do three years but that'd be a lie. Is there anything else you'd like to know?"

Yomi blushed slightly, "not really it's just; I admire you." She looked down, her cheeks colored.

"Huh. I felt the same way about a math teacher. Only that was a woman, and it wasn't appropriate then and it certainly isn't appropriate now. So if you'd be so kind as to stop 'admiring' me, I'd appreciate it. I don't want to thought of as him..." Hwikek pointed a finger at the door. No one was there. "I said I don't want to be thought of as him!" Still no one. "Huh, I guess that's the difference between real life and TV. People don't magically appear any time you want. But this 'admiration' needs to stop."

"Hey Yomi!"

"See your friend is looking for you," Hwikek turned his chair back towards Yomi, "so now's a good time to go get lunch or something like that."

"Yomi!"

"I'm coming, shut up a minute!"

"See you in class," Hwikek told Yomi's retreating back. He pondered the recent event extensively. "I'm unpleasantly surprised," he decided, "I just hope people don't think that I'm in the same boat as..._him_. I'm not Kimura!" He shook the thought out of his head. "I wonder if Kagami has the same problem with her male students?" Though loath to admit it; Hwikek knew that his off and on girlfriend Kagami was more attractive than he was.

"Okay everyone, today we will be learning more about our favorite field—"

"Boo, you suck!"

"Tomo," said Hwikek, "please stop. Today we will be working with balancing molecular equations." Hwikek drew an arrow on the board. "Who knows what this means?"

"That means yields," said Chiyo, "it shows what reactants are formed from the products!"

"Very good! Now I'll draw an equation on the board, and I want you to tell me if it is balanced or not." He proceeded to write out the chemical formula for sulfuric acid mixed with sodium bicarbonate on the left hand side. "Actually we really should start with something a bit easier."

He quickly changed the equation so that it read H with a subscript of 2 plus O with a subscript of 2 yields water. "Now is this a balanced equation?"

"No it isn't," said Chiyo.

"How is it not balanced Chiyo?"

"During a chemical reaction mass is conserved but on one side you have diatomic oxygen and on the other you only have one oxygen atom."

"Very good, I'm glad that you remembered the Law of Conservation of Mass. Now the first step we need to take to balance this equation is to see how many of each element we have on the reactants' side and the products' side. So we write out the elemental symbol for hydrogen, H, and oxygen, O. Then we'll mark that we have 2 hydrogen atoms and two oxygen atoms on the reactants side and two hydrogens atoms and one oxygen atom on the products side."

"We can't add to either side or change the chemicals on either side," said Hwikek, "however we can multiply each individual part by a number to balance the equation. Since the only discrepancy we have is two oxygens one the left side and one oxygen on the right we'll multiply the products side by two so that we'll have equal amounts of oxygen."

"Won't that make the hydrogen beckie unbalanced?" asked Yomi.

"Good! Since we multiplied the water molecule by two we not only have two oxygen atoms but we also have four hydrogen atoms. Now who thinks that they might know what to do next?"

"Just multiply the diatomic hydrogen by two."

"Very good Tomo! That's exactly how we balance this equation."

Despite her initial success during his lecture, Tomo felt lost in the work Hwikek had assigned them to do in class.

"Yomi, how do I do this?"

"Will you stop bugging me all the time? I'm trying to be productive."

"You're just afraid to admit that you can't do it aren't you?"

"Don't piss me off," said Yomi.

"I can help you Tomo," said Chiyo, "what are you trying to balance?"

"Number twenty three," she whined, "I don't get it at all!"

"But...that's just diatomic chlorine being combined with sodium to make sodium chloride," said Chiyo, "are you really stuck on it?"

"Don't worry about her Chiyo," said Yomi, "she has to learn to pay attention at some point."

"Hwikek!"

"Stop calling me that," he sighed, "what's the problem Tomo?"

"I don't know what to do here!"

"Well let's take a look at our 'atom inventory' to see which—"

"Multiply by two," said Osaka, "that's what Chiyo told me to do!"

"Multiply what?" asked Tomo.

"I don't remember..." Osaka covered her head in shame. "I'm so spacey! I don't wanna be a space cade—ooh pretty clouds..."

"Multiply the sodium and sodium chloride by two," said Kagura, "Yomi told me that was right."

"Why is it right?"

"It conserves mass," said Hwikek, "one of the fundamental aspects of all chemical reactions."

Tomo then noticed that the math teacher had entered the room. She just had to ask her an important, personal question. "Are you guys like Ms. Kurosawa and Ms. Yukari?"

"No," said Kagami and Hwikek, "we're pretty sure that they're just friends."

"And I'm not like Yukari at all," said Kagami, "I can't believe that you could even consider us to be on the same page. I'm sweet and pleasant, Yukari is just...Yukari. Plus my buddy here, he's not as cool as Minamo."

"What are you trying to say Kagami?"

"That's Ms. Kasuga to you."

"After all we've been through I think I'm entitled to call you by your first name," said an irritated Hwikek.

"Shut up please," said Kagami, "Your voice gets on my nerves sometimes."

"That-that was mean!"

"You're not going to cry are you?" Kagami gently rested a hand on his cheek, "I don't want to hurt you, just tease you a little."

"Wow," said Tomo, "you really aren't like Yukari." 


	4. A Weekend Well Spent?

"Hey wake up!"

"Wha?" said Hwikek, crawling out of bed.

"What the, you went back to sleep?"

"I guess so," he told Kagami as she stood there shocked.

"But you just let me in the front door!"

"I don't remember doing that but how else would you have gotten in here?" He felt a slight chill as his friend gave him the evil eye. "So...why are you here again?"

"You said that we were going to-"

"Oh yeah! How did I forge...oops wait, today?"

This was one of the days that Kagami wondered how her friend had ever graduated from Stanford, let alone been allowed into the dorms. He couldn't even remember an event that he had planned himself? It was a miracle that he managed to teach chemistry, though this might explain why some people were still stumped by concepts as important to the subject as charges and bonds.

"Please," she facepalmed, "just get dressed."

"Okay, so are you gonna stay in—"

Kagami quickly answered by slamming the door on her way to the living room.

"Okay," said Hwikek, as they made their way out the front door, "where are we going again?"

"You're hopeless."

"I still had better grades than you di—"

"One term!"

"Ah but that's one term I will remember for quite a while." Hwikek quickly seemed to shrink to the size of a pebble as Kagami's face became red with anger. "Did that happen? I don't remember."

"Oh good," said Kagami, "because you were this close," she shook her fist, "to being dead."

"You're in a particularly friendly mood," said the high school chemistry teacher, "to what do I owe this emanating cordial aura?"

"Your general nerdiness," said Kagami, "coupled with your lack of tact."

"Then I guess you can pay for lunch!" he said with a smile.

"What?"

"I did it last time!"

"The last time you 'did it' was with a—"

"Oh look an art gallery!" he interrupted the insult as it neared critical mass, "wanna go in?"

"Sure, I love art."

"Meh," he said, "some of it is weird."

"You're just mad that you can't understand art very well. I guess it's simply beyond you."

"Finding a boyfriend is beyond you."

"Th-that wasn't fair! I was just teasing!" Part of her felt like shaking him as he snickered at her fury. It was difficult for Kagami to not simply give him a kick. "What are you doing?" she asked as he reached inside of his pocket.

"Making art."

One of her eyes twitched as she saw him pull out a black rectangle. "You have a TI-84 on you?"

"Yep." He began to punch the keys at irregular intervals. After a moment or two he stopped and smiled. "Here we go," he turned the screen towards her.

"You did that..." Kagami didn't really know quite how she should react to the unusual, "gift."

"It's a heart see? I made it by taking the—"

"Stop," said Kagami, facepalming, "don't say anything else, please?" At the sight of the pixelly image two things had instantaneously occurred in Kagami's head. The nerd in Kagami was crying with joy since there was math, and it made a shape that resembled a heart and she'd told him about this phenomenon back in sophomore year. The rest of her had immediately wanted to smash the calculator with her foot so that no one else would see what had happened. She settled for snatching it out of his hands.

"I can't believe that you would do something like this in public," she hissed, turning the device off as it was shoved into her purse.

"You didn't like it?"

"Not really," she resisted the temptation to throw her purse under the wheels of a passing bus, to destroy the evidence forever.

"But, _why?_"

"Don't cry! It just, I mean you're so..." She didn't know quite how to put it. "I'm sorry!"

"R-really?"

"Yes! I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, it was just so nerdy, I didn't—"

"Then you can pay for lunch!"

Kagami resisted the urge to strangle him. _I should have taken up Kurosawa's offer to go see a movie_, she thought, _I bet it would have been better than this_.

"Well?"

She gave him a smile, placing a hand on his heart. Then she slammed a fist into his cheek. "Pay for your own damn lunch!"

"Hmm," said Hwikek rubbing his cheek, "you are kinda like Yukari."

"I am not! You were using me!"

"Just like that time you were using me to not fail that class!"

"You did way worse than what I did! I didn't ask you to buy me, illegally I might add, a handgun!"

"How else was I supposed to visit Compton? Did you want me to be defenseless?"

"You forgot it in my dorm!"

"Hey, it wasn't loaded," his cheeks puffed, "do you think we can get Kurosawa to take us to the movies?"

"Finally," said Kagami, "you're not simply paranoid and worthless."

"I was never either."

"Oh I'd beg to differ," said Kagami as Hwikek seemed to burn with rage. "What movie did you want to see anyways?"

"What movie did she invite you to?"

"A chick flick."

"Meh, I can handle that. I still get free popcorn."

"What makes you think that?" asked Kagami fearing that he'd ask her to pay for his expensive tastes, since movie theaters do not give popcorn away for free.

"You're not paying?"

"No."

"Do you think Kurosawa would?"

"No."

He frowned. "I guess I'll see you on Monday."


	5. Someone's in a Stink

Hwikek sat in his apartment as his friend and sometimes rival Kagami glared at him. The two of them had been sitting in front of his computer monitor for a while and ever since they'd stopped talking about their recent issues in their respective classes, which had ended with Hwikek making a joke about how bad of a teacher he thought she was, Kagami had been giving him dirty looks. He wasn't entirely sure why she had taken what he'd said so harshly, or even really been paying that much attention at all. However he was simply a bit too enthralled by the applications visible on his monitor to really try and understand what exactly her problem was. After a few more minutes of Kagami angrily sitting in silence, she decided to speak up.

"So you really think that I couldn't teach Chiyo how to divide fractions?" the math teacher hissed at Hwikek.

"You know that I was just joking right?" Hwikek responded without thinking.

"You're always taking pot shots at me whenever the opportunity arises!" Kagami angrily snapped, before pushing a strand of black hair off her face. "Everyday it seems as if all you can think of is making fun of how I teach or that I can't remember how to build complex proteins like we learned to do sophomore year, although I just did that because it was a group requirement. Would it kill you to be a little nicer to me?"

"Don't try and act like you're some kind of sinless angel being chained to an oak tree that's about to be set ablaze here," Hwikek retorted with venom, "I mean you were the one who commented on how only idiots spent their weekends playing videogames on their computer monitors!"

Kagami then moved her head indignantly to face away from her friend before she replied, "It's because normal people hangout with friends at one in the afternoon on a sunny day instead of being cooped up in their smelly apartment."

"Does it really smell?" asked Hwikek, "I don't detect anything foul in here."

"Oh of course you wouldn't," Kagami replied, "the same person who didn't even notice when I had written my name on a special ice cream container that I'd accidentally left in your freezer. And the same person who'd been so callous as to eat it in front of me as I came over to visit, before saying 'what's with you? Why are you glaring like some unsanitary gorilla?' and then finishing off the whole thing before I could contain myself long enough to point out that you were eating something I paid 1000 for!"

"I told you I was sorry," Hwikek told her in response, "what more do you want from me?" he asked, not realizing that he was getting her into an even worse mood.

"That's it, you're sorry?" she snapped, "even after you made me pay for stupid computer and even stupider video game collection because, as you said, 'Kagami, your parents are rich, can you help me out?' and then used guilt to convince me that it was in my own best interests?"

"But I mean come on, it's not so bad," Hwikek told her. "I mean hey just look at this monitor, it runs at up to 144 Hz and has a gray to gray of only one millisecond! It's the absolute best when it comes to the needs of a hardcore PC gamer like myself, and best of all I can hook my PS4 up to this one I get you to gift to me for my birthday."

"Th-that is the whole problem!" Kagami yelled in disbelief. "All you do is use me to get merchandise and fancy electronics for yourself to play with!"

"But Kagami, you're family is made up of millionaires from the east coast and my family's best year was under $60,000 and that was when I was like 9. My parents can't afford to buy me this kinda stuff," Hwikek whined in protest. "I mean it's only ever since I graduated that they've been able to easily make ends meet because I don't eat away our budget with my appetite."

"I could care less how much your parents make since you're a grown ass man!" Kagami snapped. "You should manage your own finances and just buy stuff that you can afford. It shouldn't be necessary for me to explain this to someone who once berated me about throwing money away while I was in college," she said, ending with a haughty sigh.

"That was only before I realized that if you were spending $1600 dollars on a pair of shoes didn't mean you used up three months worth of your income," Hwikek told her in a bit of a demure voice. "When I learned that your spending money really didn't have a limit I managed to get you to buy me a pretty high end computer."

"Yeah," said Kagami, still irritated, "and why can't you just use that now?"

"Oh come on Kagami," said Hwikek, "even though I hand built that rig it was only good back in 2005 and it's way past then now, that thing could hardly edge out a PS3 in terms of system capabilities and now that SSDs are finally at a decent storage capacity why would I cut myself short? I mean SATA II is like the dark ages at this point."

"You're just saying that to try and make me feel stupid because I don't care about computers aren't you?" Kagami rhetorically replied.

"Well not entirely," Hwikek told her, "I was kind just hoping to convince you that is was for a good cause. I mean you don't want me to lose against people online just because my system is too slow right?"

"Whatever," Kagami mumbled in defeat, "just, don't make me have to pry you off your chair again like I had to do when you first got a hold of that one game a few years ago alright?"

"Which one was that?" he asked her, "I mean there's been a few different games that have come out in the past few years that you had to physically separate me from to get me away from."

"Oh you know, the one with the shooting and the explosions and junk," Kagami said, not having paid that much attention to what game it had been when she'd had to wrestle away his keyboard.

"Do you mean Battlefield 3?" Hwikek replied.

"I dunno, that's probably it," Kagami answered him.

"Well come on now," said Hwikek, "I mean that was when I was a lot younger and less mature than I am now. Don't you think that if I had that little sense of responsibility I would have been fired years ago by the school?"

"Is that the logic you're going with here?" Kagami asked in disbelief.

"Yeah," he responded, "I mean it makes sense don't you think?"

"Seriously?" she asked in an irritated voice.

"Ya huh."

"The same school that keeps Kimura, who's probably a closet rapist, employed and even granted him tenure hasn't fired you and that's the best way you can try to convince me that you don't just act like a little kid whenever you get the chance?" Kagami snapped.

"Okay, I think I see your point," Hwikek groaned, "but just why is that such a problem all of a sudden? I mean back when we were in college you were way more cool about the whole thing."

"Yeah, and sometimes I thought it was a good move to show up drunk for lecture!" Kagami snapped. "Why are you so irresponsible? It's no wonder that your students are doing so poorly when they have a pathetic excuse like you for a teacher!"

Hwikek suddenly stood up. "You take that back!" he yelled at her.

"No," she said defiantly, "they're test scores keep getting worse every time and only in your class. Even in Yukari's English courses they've been doing better than that."

"That was a low blow and you know it!" Hwikek told her, "I don't ever remember saying anything that mean about how well you teach your students. Even if they did have the lowest averages out of any teacher on the last set of exams!"

"Look three of them were out sick that day and there was a fire drill during the middle so that isn't a fair comparison!"

"Well, well, well," Hwikek replied in an angry voice, "so now we care about fairness? So it was completely fair to compare my subject that has just started to touch on the unique properties of particles when they're discussed at the quantum level and another teacher who isn't even smart enough to not accidentally park in between two spaces?" he asked her, his voice almost at a scream.

"Funny that you mention that all of a sudden considering how back in college you weren't even able to realize that if class started at 10 you needed to get your ass out the door before 9:50!" Kagami snapped back at him. "Even she can do that much math in her head."

"Why are you always picking on me?"

"Why are you such an asshole?"

"Can't you go find someone else to bother instead of coming over here just to complain about how I live my life?"

"Have you been this stubborn since you were born or only since the first time that you decided to talk to me?"

At this time the two of them had their heads pressed against each other like a pair of fighting mountain goats. It seemed as if their flared nostrils were about to let forth jets of billowing steam or they were going to rear their heads back to head-butt each other. Their clenched fists, jutting behind them like the wings of two mad ostriches, shook with rage and their teeth grated together in pure rage.

"I hate you!" they both simultaneously shouted at each other before breaking away in shock. "I didn't mean that, what I meant is that you're being…" The two stopped talking for a moment before they both looked down in embarrassment.

"I'm sorry that I ate your ice cream and made you pay for all sorts of things that I wanted that were fairly expensive," Hwikek said in apology.

"And I'm sorry for letting you boss me around with putting my foot down and telling you off," Kagami replied. After a few moments of silence where she just stared at Hwikek's shocked expression. "What?" she finally asked him, "you know it's true."

"That's not the point!" he snapped, "you were supposed to say that you were sorry for saying I was a bad teacher."

"What are you trying to do, make a liar out of me?" Kagami rhetorically replied. "I don't give in to such selfish requests as that. Don't you know that I do have certain standards to uphold? Then again you might not since you used to have trouble preparing toast right after grad school."

"I didn't have trouble making toast," Hwikek said, "I just had a bit of trouble not putting the butter on before it went into the toaster," at this point his voice trailed off into a faint mumble.

"Yeah, that's definitely going to make me take back what I said about how you teach chemistry."


End file.
